Morningstar finds Noom shaped by GLP‑1 citations

5W, a public relations firm that publishes AI visibility rankings, said on May 19 that Noom and WeightWatchers entered the GLP-1 era with different business results but similar exposure patterns inside generative AI tools. Its latest index tracked citation share in the U.S. weight-loss and metabolic health category across ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews, according to a Morningstar-hosted PR Newswire release. The report said the shift in how companies are described by AI systems is becoming part of how consumers discover brands in health. It pointed to Noom’s medication business as a factor in how the company is now classified. ### Which companies dominated the GLP-1 citations? 5W said Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly now account for nearly all GLP-1 citations inside ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity. The report said five GLP-1 receptor agonists — Wegovy, Zepbound, Ozempic, Mounjaro and Saxenda — captured about 57% of all category citations, with the top four brands alone taking 55%. The May 19 release named Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly as the two drugmakers that “own nearly 100%” of GLP-1 citations in those three AI tools. That concentration, 5W said, sits alongside a broader reordering of visibility in weight loss and metabolic health as AI-generated answers become another discovery layer for consumers. (prnewswire.com) ### Where do Noom and WeightWatchers fit into that picture? 5W said Noom and WeightWatchers both adapted to the GLP-1 market, but with different financial outcomes. The release summarized them as companies that moved into the category while also becoming legible to AI systems in new ways. (prnewswire.com) WeightWatchers’ move into prescription weight-loss treatment came through its 2023 acquisition of Sequence, a telehealth platform, a deal the company previously described as a way to expand into clinical weight management. Noom’s move came earlier through Noom Med, which the company launched in October 2022 as a program combining its behavior-change model with clinical support. (prnewswire.com) ### Why does Noom show up as a hybrid of habits and medication? Noom said when it launched Noom Med in October 2022 that the service combined its psychology-based weight program with personalized clinical support. Chief Executive Saeju Jeong said at the time that the goal was not only weight loss but also avoiding chronic illness and extending lifespan. Current Noom product pages still present that same mix. (noom.com) The company says Noom Weight focuses on behavioral change, while Noom Med offers access to GLP-1 and other prescription weight-loss drugs with coaching and tracking tools layered on top. 5W’s report said that structure helped shape Noom’s classification inside AI systems as a behavior-plus-medication brand rather than a pure telehealth or pure lifestyle product. ### What is 5W measuring when it talks about “AI visibility”? 5W said this weight-loss ranking is the fourth installment in its AI Visibility Index series. The firm said the series measures share of citations across major AI systems and is part of a broader effort to map how brands appear in machine-generated answers. (noom.com) A separate 5W citation-source study released on May 1 said its broader index synthesized more than 680 million individual citations across ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, Gemini and Claude. Another 5W release on May 15 said 85.5% of AI citations come from earned media rather than brand websites. Those studies help explain the report’s argument that category leadership can depend partly on how a company is described across the web, not only on its own marketing materials. (prnewswire.com) ### What comes next for the companies mentioned? Noom’s current Noom Med pages say the service offers online clinician access, prescription fulfillment if appropriate and a GLP-1 companion program, while Noom Health markets the product to employers and other organizations. WeightWatchers and Noom both remain active participants in the prescription weight-loss market as GLP-1 brands continue to dominate citation share in AI search, according to 5W’s May 19 release. (morningstar.com) (noom.com)